I mentioned earlier this week that the annual Black List is coming out—or did come out, last Tuesday.
The number-one script on this list is by the same writer who penned the number-one script last year, Travis Braun. Congrats to him, he’s super talented.
I thought his script last year, Bad Boy, was outstanding. It was a serial killer movie from the point of view of a pet dog. I wonder if it will ever get made because of the animal training required, but it would be a great movie.
This year his number-one script is a comedy, One Night Only. From the Black List’s description: “Two strangers scramble to find someone to sleep with on the one night of the year when premarital sex is legal.”
So it’s The Purge, as a romcom. This is a great concept—as in a super sticky, simple idea that makes the script irresistible.
I read it and it’s excellent. This writer is very good.
Alas, this script concept hurts my brain.
This is such a dystopian idea, it would only come from a world like The Handmaid’s Tale. There is basically no universe in which people would vote for politicians who ban non-marital sex. Nobody wants this! Even the religious fundamentalists who would push it probably wouldn’t actually want it, since they’re up to as much hanky-panky as everybody else.
In the script, the ban is enforced by biometric sensors (think Logan’s Run) and if you break it, you get a huge fine.
But the script otherwise takes place in the contemporary world.
So like I said, it hurts my brain. This is tonally so weird, so draconian, that I don’t understand the world this script happens in.
Maybe I just get hung up on the wrong things?
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